


Existing Between Life and Death in a Dirt Universe (and Other Complications)

by abmortem



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Aphenphosmphobia, Higgs risks life and limb for sams attention, Lots of Crying, M/M, cottagecore sam bridges, give higgs some attention please, it is what it is, it may be a slow burn but there's a lot of angst don't worry I got u covered, post death stranding, sam is a good dad, slow burn???? maybe????, somebody's TOUCH STARVED but they don't even know that they are, someone cries at least ONCE every five minutes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22891066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abmortem/pseuds/abmortem
Summary: Sam shuffled around in black sand. Someone was here with him. Someone he wished he didn't know."She didn't want me dead."
Relationships: Sam Porter Bridges/Higgs Monaghan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	1. Revenir

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!!!!!! ♥♡♥(ꈍᴗꈍ) This is my first time writing a Samhiggs fic! I might edit the summary later, but I'm super excited with how this fic is gonna turn out!!! I've been writing it for a while for my own self enjoyment on my freetime. I love it so much, and I've decided that I would put it on here for you guys to love as well!! Thank you so much for reading!!!

“She didn’t want me dead.”

Sam looked up. The gruesome silhouette of Higgs Monaghan stood a couple feet away from him on the grey sea shore. Higgs was motionless. Only the gods would allow him to look like that in his demented sort of mystique, the pallor buried deep within is veins; iron legs and onyx eyes. It would be easy for them to relent themselves to him like that. In return, he would ruin them with a single flick of his spiderlike fingers. 

Sand had also begun to hug at Higgs’s boots. The waves would not stop crashing into them; perhaps it was an offering of sorts. _Who would even offer anything to a nihil like him. Was Sam allowing it to happen?_ So much of the sand, like mounds of charcoal, blended so well into Higgs’s feet that Sam could not tell where his body ended and where the beach began. The man was a sculpture doused in grey, as if to be presented and served as some sort of visual aphrodisiac for an elite sodality. 

He was truly endless in that moment of time. 

That facade broke when he stumbled over, the waves crashed too hard into him. The sand reached for him, but cried back into the ocean as she forced them away from him. That’s when Sam realized: His ocean was rejecting Higgs, and in spite of that, Higgs still refused to move. 

The only part of him that shined in that moment were the water droplets studded on his boots, hydrogen preventing them from doing what the grey sand didn’t want. But Sam could sense it. t

There was something- _anything,_ reflecting off them.

“Are you fucken’ listening to a word I’m sayin’?”

What was radiating off of him, exactly? Sam couldn’t quite put it. Was it revenge? Hedonism? Defeat? Acceptance? Higgs was a man of all things and no things, put here on purpose by the universe to exist and simultaneously not exist at the same time. If he wasn’t here, he was there, and when he wasn’t there, he was _in between_ , and Sam _loathed_ that he could feel Higgs at any moment in time within those. He thought he could finally find solace in the fact that Higgs was presumably “nowhere” after Fragile had left him.

_He was a fool for counting his blessings. Higgs was everywhere. Of course it was too good to be real._

Some follies are only temporary. Bittersweet how the world makes humanity suffer in such a terrible way. 

This thought made Sam make a frown at him, “I thought I saw the last of you.”

“Shit,” Higgs breathed, “I thought I saw the last of you too. 

Higgs beckoned closer to Sam, cautious to step as if Sam were really gonna shoot him. Sam wasn’t, he didn’t manifest any sort of weapon here. It was just he and Higgs, bodies wired within the endless grey and green chasm of Sam’s beach. It was too intimate already that Higgs was here, but now he was getting real close to Sam. His breath was too palpable against Sam’s face. 

_There isn’t enough oxygen to breathe for the both of us here, Higgs._

Higgs was right in front of Sam, a painting begging to be noticed. Sam knew now what was radiating off of him. The word lingered on his tongue, but he didn’t want to say it. _He didn’t want to accept it._ It existed, but it had to exist without a name. Something so inane was damned to live like that, unrecognized, the universe would want it to. It had to exist but not exist. 

Sam’s eyes trailed to Higgs’s face. So close. 

Now, Higgs was a sculpture in front of him, and only him. Higgs made it this way. Reserved it. 

_This was god,_ Sam thought, and physically, god did not look like he had been nearly beaten to death, no, but his BB pod was gone and the khol around his eyes were thicker and cattier than what Sam could remember. The man could have easily been mistaken for a walking skeleton from a distance. It didn’t help either with how disgustingly pallid Higgs’s skin was. He was so ghastly that he was immortal; even Macbeth didn’t want to drain the blood from him.

“How’s livin life like now that you’ve won, huh, Sam? Look at the world _you_ created. You sent humanity into this god-awful fuckin’ tailspin game of waitin’ for our next Extinction Entity! When do you think they’re gonna pop up? A million years from now? Tomorrow? Why, what if later today?”

Higgs kicked at the ground beneath him (nearly knocking Sam in the process) as if the beach below him owed him something, maybe a debt for how the ocean treated him. Then, Higgs spread his arms out and started to yell out into the landscape. 

_“Anything’s possible on this rock in the middle of fucken’ nowhere, boy.”_

After that, Higgs placed his hand on Sam’s shoulder. In return, Sam released an acute gasp and pulled away from the god-man. His heart was racing unbearably. 

_You’re suffocating._

Higgs stared at him, nearly just as startled, gloved band retreated back into his chest.

“Not so touchy-feely anymore, huh? Mr. Aphenphosmphobia?” 

Sam didn’t answer. 

Higgs beckoned closer to him, lips almost against his ear. 

Sam clenched his fists. 

“Why are you here?” Sam asked.

“I already told you,” Higgs said, voice darker against Sam’s temple, _“Amelie didn’t want me dead.”_

The heat and condensation of Higgs’s breath made Sam’s face redden. He was trembling and embarrassed, trying so hard not to start breathing heavily from Higgs’s contact, resisting every innate urge to fight back against him just for whispering into his ear. God, it was so noticeable how much he was shaking, but Higgs wasn’t doing anything about it! He had to know Sam was reacting like this and he didn’t want to bring it up, or he didn’t want to make Sam conscious of it. 

In fact, Sam was all too conscious of himself in that moment. His knuckles were so white and his nails were dug so deep into his palms, he thought his bones would either pop through the surface of his skin or he’d start bleeding from his nails ripping into his own flesh. Higgs wasn’t even touching him. He was just palpable, so hot against Sam. He was burning up.

“Fragile told me that you stayed on the beach.” Sam said, a drip of sweat rolling like a tear down his cheek. He couldn’t bear to try and make eye contact like this. 

“I did,” Higgs said, moving back in front of the man, “and oh my _lord_ I was spooked outta my mind there just from the sheer isolation… I was like a little Juliet wandering around without her Romeo, except my Romeo was not so much as a person… but a little bit of socialization. I nearly went mad there, Sam. I was hopin’ and prayin’ that God or whatever gave two fucks about me out there was listening, listening to my beggin’ that I was stuck on dear ol’ Amelie’s beach instead of my own. I was hopin’ that she didn’t kick me out after our little _quarrel_ because I didn’t want to be alone again, naw sir, _not anymore._ ”

Now at a more comfortable distance, Higgs had his arms spread out again looking towards the sky like a madman. Sam wasn’t amused at first, but as the time persisted, the more absurd Higgs became. The sheer, almost comical fervor of his voice had Sam damn well captivated.

“...And then one day, my prayers were answered and Amelie did show up!” Higgs said, wiggling his arms around, “I looked just as fresh as I did when you beat the shit outta me and dragged me out of that lake, and I was absolutely filled with rage after seein’ insidious Amelie’s face! But, in exchange for my rage, she cleaned me up, tore off a thread of her quipu for me and said, ‘ _You didn’t deserve any of this. This is the only way you can go back’._ And like that, she took me here, to _you,_ Sam. You were the only thing that let me come back. I’ve been looking for you for a couple days now, losin’ track of everything from space and time every time I’ve come here, and now here we are. Guess I was wrong about not being able to repatriate from the beach.”

Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

“Where you at then, Higgs?”

Higgs frowned, moved in closer to Sam’s face again. Being right in front of Sam where he could see everything going on wasn’t as perilous as being in his ear, but the intimacy of hot breath against any part of him is something that will always make him spiral. 

“I think it’s more of a question of where in the hell you are, Sam. I’ve traversed the whole fuckin’ UCA for your body. But you’re nowhere.”

“Sam- oh my god, you’re being serious.”

Sam was staring down Higgs dead in the eyes and giving him a smirk so mischievous that it looked like the corner of his lips had been cut straight through to his ears.

“You’re not a part of the UCA anymore.” Higgs said. 

Sam had never tested it out to make _crystal clear_ that he was off the network, but hearing this sent such a beautiful wave of relief around his body. 

It actually worked. He was a nobody again.

“Sam.”

“What?”

“You gotta tell me.”

“Why does it matter? Why do I matter to you all of a sudden?”

Arm high in the sky, Higgs jingled around the golden quipu strand from his pant pocket.

“Because this thing right here… has me connected to you! I thought I would at least return it to you in person, lest you’re gonna deal with me every time you’re here,” 

Then a grin betrothed him.

“Unless, of course, _you don’t want me to leave-”_

“Hey-!” Sam yelled. He attempted to grab the strand from Higgs, but to no avail.

“Naw, Sammy boy, I don’t think you can have this. It’s mine for right now.”

Sam tried one more time to retrieve the quipu strand, but Higgs started to become more forceful to the point that he pushed Sam away. 

“Fuck you, Higgs.” Sam spat, regaining balance and starting his journey away from the man. 

“Then tell me, Sam.” Higgs caught up to him, “What are you so afraid of that prevents me from delivering this to you in person?”

“I don’t know!” Sam said, “you tried to kill me in the past, that’s a good enough reason not to tell you in my book.”

The remark cited an airy huff from Higgs, “yeah, and you’ve tried to kill me, yet here I am wanting to find you. Now we’ve made even. Tell me.”

Sam stopped, turned around, watching Higgs again. 

Higgs maintained much of the same composure he had when standing at the beach shore, except this time he was much more blue. His arms were payne’s grey whilst his eyes radiated that of the sky above them. The cool breeze of ocean air wisped freely around Sam’s hair, but in Higgs’s, they barely stirred. 

The bend of old leather whispered lightly as Higgs coiled his fingers into a tight fist. His eyes were becoming more demanding as eagerness pooled in his chest. He wanted nothing more than to rip all of his clothes off and tear his skin open, to fiddle around with the bones in his ribcage until they cracked open so he could pull out whatever organs inside him; anything in the world to ease this pressure within his brittle heart.

Sam would soon have to depart from his beach, where all nature was immortal to the forces of erosion and where the lush grass never took a break from dancing in the wind. Yet all Sam could see was this intruder, no- this _murderer,_ standing as still as the rocks his boots lied upon. The only thing moving on him was that golden quipu strand that had itself snaked around The fingers of Higgs’s fist, dangling beautifully off the man’s thumb. 

That was when Sam found a new way to describe Higgs. Not only now was he _a man of all things and no things, put here on purpose by the universe to exist and simultaneously not exist at the same time,_ but he was also the last human being alive to talk to Amelie Strand. Why should Sam leave Higgs forever then?

Sam took a step forward, and the grip on Higgs’s fist loosened. Behind Higgs, Sam noticed how curved the shore of his beach was; spherical, it’s curvature was awfully similar to that of the smile spreading across Higgs’s pale face. It made Sam smile back at him. 

“I’ll tell you.”


	2. Petrichor and Priestesses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for the super late update!! I'm posting this wayyyyy later than what I thought I would, but don't worry because this chapter is super long. It was supposed to be longer, but I already had this much written and I really wanted to update it, so I found a good spot to end on :) ALSO, there's A LOT of crying in this chapter haha idk why I write like this

“So, this is your house, huh Sam?”

Higgs stood in awe at the dark thicket of redwoods that surrounded him. Their rigid trunks stretched so high above him. They made cataclysmic veins of umber that pierced the sky and reached for the heavens. Patches of sunshine sprawled through their branches, making little kisses around Higgs’s awful face. The whole scene caused something to erupt within him, and black tear descended gracefully from his cheek. To be alone like this, so powerless to Mother Nature; it nipped at Higgs’s chest into a glutted overture. Took him back to when he was reborn at seventeen and stood in raw sunshine for the first time ever. How he could see his white hands clearer than he ever had, so engulfed dipped in wet blood that glistened crimson so heavenly against bland the sand rocks after daddy’s death. 

Nestled in the middle of the thicket was this quaint little cabin. It stood on a wooden foundation that rose a couple feet off the ground, and had a deck and stretched around its entire perimeter. 

A rumble bellowed from within the home. The intestines in Higg’s stomach started to twirl knots within themselves. A part of him wanted to leave. A part of him wanted to find an open spot behind one of these godly redwoods and just vomit there for hours and examine the types of coagulated waste that would spew from his mouth so that he would know what to cleanse himself of next time he came here. 

But things wouldn’t get better unless he saw him. 

The front cabin door rustled, and out appeared Sam. Sam Strand. Sam Porter Bridges. Sam _I’ve thought about you every fucking day I was stuck on the beach but I can’t tell you that right now_ Bridges. The man still looked about the same as he did when he left poor dear black-and-blue Higgs alone to his tribulations on Amelie’s Beach, except now his hair was down. He still wore that same grey muscle shirt that Higgs always thought was a little too tight on him, same black pants, but he wasn’t wearing shoes! Did Sam always just walk out in the woods barefoot now? 

Sam took a careless step off the cabin deck and settled his feet into the dewy grass in front of Higgs. Oddly enough, Sam was swanlike in his stance, but his eyes remained emotionless as always. This was thanks to the guard that defends the windows to his eyes. Higgs couldn’t tell what Sam was planning at that moment or what he was going to do next after standing for a while because of it, but having his intuition blocked was fine as long as he could be with him.

There was something different about Sam though. Something about his gait was teeming with a new found jouissance as if the man literally got life breathed into him. Higgs couldn’t help but grin at the sight. Yes, Sam was hardly grinning back, but it was enough. _Higgs knew he was better._

“I was expectin’ to see a porter,” Higgs teased, swaying in the grass, “not a goddamn hippie.”

“I’m not a porter anymore,” Sam said, “I thought we went over the fact that I left the UCA.”

“Yeah, and I’m still struck dumb over it. I really thought you were gonna stay in it forever Sam… especially after all them friends you made.”

Sam furrowed his eyebrows, “You know, things just happen sometimes. I just did what I was destined to do.”

“So you’re sayin’ you were destined to be a hermit in the woods, takin’ care of your kid in this big ol’ cabin…” Higgs looked at the house behind Sam, “say, where’s your kid anyway? And why ain’t your house buried six feet deep in the ground away from timefall? Sam, I got so many questions.”

“She has a name, you know,” Sam said, “her name is Lou, and she’s inside the house. But the roof of the cabin is made of timefall resistant steel, and spreads pretty far outside the perimeter which is good. It looks kinda odd, but it works. Plus the canopy above me adds a little extra coverage from the timefall.” 

Sam looked up at the sky. The sky beamed back to him.

“Higgs, have you ever stopped in your life? Just stopped and looked around at the life around you? Noticed how beautiful it is? These trees here, they’re North Carolina Coast Redwoods. They live for _thousands_ of years. They’re practically immune to timefall. I think it’s crazy how some living things can be unaffected by the rain.”

“Yeah, I was cryin’ earlier over it all.” Higgs looked up at the trees again. Their limbs shook a little and two doves popped out from them. They danced around the heavens where the trees wished they could rome, then descended back down upon their arms. The sight triggered another punch to Higgs’s gut. He laughed despite it.

“It’s all so intense when you are so used to the rust and gleam of steel, especially in a world where seein’ trees is rarer than findin’ random golden crystals off the ground.” 

Sam chuckled, “Yeah, that’s why I moved out here. Not only did I want to reconnect with what brought us here in the first place, but forests are so damn hard to find nowadays. I wanted to raise Lou without anyone else around us. We don’t need people, we just need each other.” 

_The bullets of my gun tore through tar in a row of death, and I was the reaper. The Earth was dark for so long and it seemed I forgot what color even was. I was colorblind for everything except for the the way her crimson heels patted across space and dirt and how her crimson dress swayed with every swish of her hips down at the beach._

**_She betrothed this power to me._ **

_“Huh?”_

_His oradeck was wrecked, but it wasn’t enough. I was the particle of god that permeated all existence, and I wanted to transfix myself deep into his mind. When he shut his eyes, I wanted him to see me. I wanted to flood into every crevasse that made up his fucking brain and infect him so he could come back to me. So he could see me again. Sometimes I wanted to shoot him in the brain so that I would be the last thing he could comprehend._

**_Did she know I felt this way?_ **

_His BB was gripping to the glass of its pod and watching me. I was monster enough to make unborn children afraid. But this was all I ever wanted. What she told me I wanted._

**_This was how she made me._ **

_“All that for a repatriate. What a waste.”_

_The BB seized up inside its pod when I shot again, this time actually hitting it. He fell back, inhaling tar and doing as much as he could to protect his fragile stomach, but the damage had been done. The pod glass had erupted into a million cobwebs that refused to unknot themselves. Fluid wasn’t out leaking yet, but the look he had on his face when staring at me changed me. For the first time I felt what he felt, and it gushed from my eyes in terrible decadence. It was then that I realized shooting him in the head wasn’t intimate enough. This was how he would remember me._

**_I had to alter the child._ **

Higgs’s heart dropped and he froze up. He started to shake, trying so hard to relinquish the nausea that begged to be heard inside him and spurt out tar that boiled inside his esophagus. It was so unbearable. The back of his tongue burned.

There, Higgs tried to say something, anything, but every muscle in his face tensed up and all he was left with was quivering lips.

“Lou is inside…” Higgs whispered through his teeth, almost as if reciting a curse. He fought back any knot that tried to form in his throat. He knew that if he didn’t, he would gush up something undesirable. 

“Can I see her?” He asked. 

Nothing. Even mice could talk louder than Sam in that moment. The loudest thing that could be heard was the rustling of pines in the trees above, perhaps even the dew from the grass dripping their tears into the dirt. Or even the worms burrowing below them into nestling fossils. 

It wasn’t long after that before Higgs noticed the stream of swan tears that stained Sam’s face. Sam looked absolutely horrific like this; far more frightening than the way he looked at Higgs after beating him, but it made sense. In the grand scheme of all that there was and had ever existed, Sam had won both physically and outcome wise. He saved the world by pummeling Higgs and saving humanity. But Higgs? He won too. He won emotionally. He left that mark on Sam just the way he intended, and now Sam had his puffy, nothingness eyes drilled into Higgs. They were reliving the moment together- how the chiralium gun pointed at Sam, Lou’s dismay, and the tar stained tears that slid to die on Higgs’s baroque face. 

Sam could never forget Higgs’s face when he did it.

“I-“ Sam said, wiping his thumb discreetly across his cheeks. 

A faint whine could be heard in the distance. 

“N-No, Higgs, you can’t. She…”

Higgs furrowed his eyes at Sam, and convulsed in a silent gag. He tried to cover his mouth under the guise of wiping grime off his lips and hoped Sam didn’t notice (but he did. Guess they were even. Again.). 

The whining grew louder, and birthed itself out into the forest like a crying nymph, bouncing off tree trunks and shredding straight into Higgs’s eardrums. It was enough to overpower and end the pain and nausea, but now he was so overcome with emotion that it was hard to balance. It was life and death coming for Higgs, and Sam was a statue. A spectator in the parliament of dichotomy and grief. 

She was doing this. 

Higgs pointed towards the cabin.

“She’s cryin’, Sam.”

Sam couldn’t respond. He stopped being human for a brief moment; Higgs knew because all that life Sam came out with wasted away as he looked down at himself. It was stranding somewhere along the wisps and curls of the redwoods that happy Sam probably referred to as paradise. 

His absence hurt. 

“You gonna help her?” Higgs asked. 

Sam then clicked back into himself, staring at his hands, narrowing his eyes at the younger man. 

_What the fuck was Higgs insinuating?????_ Sam thought. Was he criticizing Sam’s parenting skills? Did he think he could do it better? What in the everloving _fuck?_

Sam’s eyes got damn near so big that they could slip out from his sockets. He sipped the air in, thunder cracking in the distance as he did so. Deer crossed frantically out from the Bush like rats and disappeared. 

As if it all mattered to Sam. 

Higgs didn’t know that Sam was resistant to timefall. However, Sam would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by the idea of standing in the rain with a fellow repatriate. To barter with the chances of Higgs’s possible susceptibility or watching the man crumble to dust at its dark touch, to degrade into damaged goods that could never be repaired again.

It could be beautiful.

Because if Higgs were susceptible to timefall, his dust would descend to the ground and fertilize her, giving wake to summertime wildflowers that Sam would dry out and use for tinder. Higgs was, after all, a murderer. He ordered for the extinction of an entire city of innocent people, tried to murder Sam, tried to murder his daughter… how important was Higgs’s life to Sam in that moment? 

But!

But Sam had so many questions for Higgs. So so many. Higgs was the last person to talk with Amelie. He could provide the closure that Sam yearned for in secret. Reconcile his relationship with Amelie. Give him advice she bestowed to Higgs that would help him trust again. 

Sam could make this work. He could keep Lou away from Higgs. Lock her bedroom door then never take her out. He would never shift his eyes from Higgs while he wasn't with her. 

Yes, that would work perfectly. 

“I’ll go take care of her.” Sam said almost robotically. The thunder was getting louder.

“You can come with me if you want. Can you wait in my living room? When she’s calmed down, I’ll meet up with you and then we can talk.”

“Sure,” Higgs nodded, standing a little bit taller now. He tried to reach for Sam’s shoulder, but then he remembered that doing that was probably the least helpful thing he could be doing in that moment. 

* * *

The crying had come from the left side of the living room. Once Sam had opened the door, seances jostled themselves into Higgs’s forehead. The man nearly cowered, itching at the scars on his face. He held onto himself with ivy arms as Sam delved into the abyss where sobbing morphed into aquamarine bawling, made it known to every nefarious mortal being that they were repulsive and guilty.

It bled and reverberated for tutelage; the soft caress of the mother. That’s why she accepted Sam, but if Higgs dared to peer inside, he only saw himself reflected from a wooden mirror engraved with the bodies of dead lambs that stared straight into him. He gasped at the sight, took two miry steps away from the bedroom, and dug his arms deeper into his body.

Maybe that was his head playing mind tricks on him.

The crying had ceased. Sam had done his job. However, without him physically here, Higgs would swear that he felt exactly how Lou was feeling. Perhaps he was just manifesting her energy as his own. It was just that the more his arms snaked themselves around his torso, the more aware he became of his own body heat. Then the more his awareness of it grew, the more cavernous Sam’s house became against the netting of isolation while his skin burned.

Or maybe that was just how cabins made people feel.

Despite the silence, Sam still had not emerged from the bedroom. The bluntness of being second option, _even when against a baby-_ made Higgs feel cantankerous. He ached with an agony that scorched him from the inside. To be parasite within Sam’s mind, rot his brain down into nothing aside from stray neurons that occasionally tinged with black and gold until the chiralium leeched out from his earlobes- it was sometimes all Higgs wanted. But craving attention over a baby that would otherwise not survive without it? Was he truly that despicable? The more Higgs delved into his thoughts, the more debilitated he grew against the contrast of the dark wood panels that adorned Sam’s living room, which stretched themselves all the way into his kitchen towards the back of the home.

He wasn’t despicable if he didn’t complain.

_Keep your damn thoughts to yourself._

To the adjacent side of the bedroom door, several pictures embedded themselves into the panels. Curiosity became the best of Higgs and pulled at his ears to check them out. Even in the midst of this _aposamalypse,_ outside forces were begging the man not to think about it. So he approached the cluster of photos, average as they were, with the exception of one issue- it seemed every single picture was of Lou! Higgs tried to get a better look, wiping off the grime that slumbered upon of surface of the frames in hopes to receive some clarity, but beholding a photograph for all its worth was different when the only light source within the home was from a sun that hid herself behind the shoulders of timefall. But, but, _but…_ all that existed were these baby photos, about seven of them, none of which held pictures of Sam or anyone else. Every photograph had the same premise: Lou. There would be slight differences, like Lou sleeping against a plain background or Lou out in the middle of nature staring into the camera, or the nature within Lou shining out from her delicate eyes.

The same eyes Higgs had almost smashed into nothingness.

_Sam really needed a hobby other than carin’ for his kid._

Or maybe he actually did have another hobby, as it seemed that Sam Porter Bridges suffered from a rogue sort of kleptomania. Such kleptomania made itself apparent on the opposite wall where a glass curio cabinet stood tall behind a plush ruffled couch. The cabinet was littered with various odds and ends, from psychedelic plastic bottle caps to dried flowers and herbs pulled from outside endeavors, all plants coming with labels such as _Campanula rotundifolia_ or _Monarda didyma._ There were also labeled skulls displayed in front of chunks of driftwood and a serrated antler. Higgs couldn’t believe his eyes at this, but Sam even had a sizable cryptobiote terrarium! It was sumptuous too, embellished with a cool grass base with chunks of jet where live pink-and-orange anemones grew fourth. The enclosure contained three of those little things, all pirouetting around the tank like they were preforming The Nutcracker and Higgs was the bumptious theatre critic. One of the biotes had a big brown dot on the side of its head. It jostled around in a ceramic waterbowl and seemed fully aware of Higgs’s presence. The thing was making eye contact with the man and even seemed to wave its cute baby hand in the air to him. The terrarium too, had a thick layer of tape at the bottom left corner. On it, was written:

_Tardigrada cryptobioticus_

- _Smudge, Spook, and Skeet_

However, what really stood out to Higgs were the assortment of plastic toy soldiers scattered through the bottom shelf. Higgs even got down on his knees to observe them, and he was in awe over how some of them looked. Who gave these to Sam? Because they had to be custom made! Sam had these figures of anything- BTs, Porter Delivery Trucks, Higgs-

Higgs extended an arm out, opening the cabinet door to get a better look at the figure of himself. In his hand, he realized how much it truly looked like him. The figure perfectly matched him from the top of his head, to the ghastly grooves of his mask, all the way down to the number of divots on the bottom of his leather combat boots.

_Why did Sam have this?_

The classic click of cold metal broke the silence in the living room, followed by the whisper of a closed door with footsteps trailing boulder-like all the way up behind Higgs. When he looked up, Sam was towering over him, watching Higgs look at his stuff. Higgs put the figure down and shut the cabinet.

“You realize you got a little clone of me in that shelf, right?”

Sam narrowed his eyes, flicking back and forth between Higgs and the Higgs lookalike. A chuckle erupted from him.

“Every time my friends knew I was doing _Sam Stuff_ , they thought I wouldn’t come back, so they gave me these soldiers as a memento saying, ‘Damn, _fuck_ Sam… you really survived that.’”

_That’s all that was? A reminder that I was just a hurdle you had to cross over?_

“Oh,” Higgs said, “ _my apologies_.”

But what was he apologizing for, exactly? Hurting Sam? Messing around with his stuff? Being a nuisance?

“It’s fine,” Sam answered, heading into his kitchen, “you’re welcome to sit down if you want.”

Did Sam really know for sure what Higgs was apologizing for though? No, it was so muddled. But it shouldn’t have to make sense because in relation to Higgs Monaghan, his apprehensibility wasn’t very relevant to anything in Sam’s life.

Higgs glided over and sat in the middle of Sam’s couch, giving out a slight gasp at how the cushions devoured him. It was like sinking into a cloud. Higgs reveled in it, tapping his forefinger against his knee and curling the corners of his mouth beautifully. If only he could be stuck in time like this.

Sam returned with a glass of water in his hand, sitting down softly upon a chair in front of Higgs, taking a quick sip from his drink before placing it down on a nightstand.

“You built this place yourself?” Higgs asked.

Sam set his glass down. 

“What? No. I mean, I decorated a bit and stuff… I just found this place while wondering around the mountains and decided to settle here, it beats getting out a PCR and making some underground place to live. I don’t like this ant mentality that we have now where we think we got nowhere else to live in but the dirt. It’s stupid. I’m not made for that. It makes me feel sick.” 

“Very understandable.” Higgs nodded. He watched the way that Sam’s hands swayed as he talked, noting the deep fervor pacing around in his eyes. It made the entirety of Higgs’s face tinge. 

“Plus,” Sam continued, “my main priority, of course, was to find a place where no one could bother Lou.”

Sam’s voice started to crack. 

“...Be… Because…” he sniffed, “Ever since she came into my life, people just wanted to take her from me. Everyone wanted her _dead._ ” 

Sam looked at Higgs with those terrible eyes. Oh no, here it was again. Higgs tried to sink further into the couch leather, to become enveloped. Overwhelmed. The fervor from Sam dripped red and blue from his eyes and the teardrops littered his lap. Higgs tried not to find himself in the same way. 

_“You tried to shoot him.”_

_Higgs stared at his wobbly hands. His slaughter fingers. Golden pantherian claws that yearned for flesh. He abandoned his death gun a while ago, but Amelie didn’t seem to give any care to it._

_“I don’t know what came over me. Now, I wish I didn’t do it.”_

_“How did it make you feel, Higgs?”_

_“It made me feel like a fox in a henhouse. Except all the hens were baby chicks and I had unlimited prowess to kill how I wanted. I was just so shocked because I didn’t know I was capable of such a god-awful breed of apathy. I just wanted to find a way for him to think about me.”_

_“Well. I think he thinks about you enough.”_

_Higgs turned to look at Amelie in disbelief. Did she know about it? How horrendously his heart ached for Sam? How carnivorous it made him? Relinquished him from the earth and chopped him up into itty bitty little pieces that disguised vulnerability in glass walls? Dare he ask her more. Leave it to this?_

_What would Amelie do if she knew?_

_“You really think Sam thinks about me?”_

_“As much as he should.”_

_And how much exactly was that supposed to be? God, this was tragic! How was Higgs supposed to connect with Sam from comments like that? Their similarities were uncanny, so would it be odd for Sam to hear Higgs talk and understand him? Because currently, Higgs always found himself at the predicament of warping the Earth into some nightmarish onyx tarland whenever he sensed Sam. Some days, **most days, all days, **Higgs just wanted a way to communicate with Sam. But casually approaching him was simply a deathwish!_

_The sky here was forever grey. It never transitioned from shades of midnight to apricot or rosey pink (or so Higgs was taught it was supposed to), or from classic sky blue to lavender, back to midnight. Earth never revealed her ‘moon’ or ‘stars’ either, and at this point Higgs thought it was all one big conspiracy despite what Amelie tried to tell him. But that’s all life was on earth now. Every day was exactly the same. No matter where Higgs turned, BTs always followed him under a neverending grey afternoon, and all mountain formations formed under the same premise: Timefall trauma caused erosion and the amount of oxygen within the area determined whether or not the soil was light or dark grey. But where were the flowers? The trees? The animals?_

_Sam was that burst of color on Higgs’s Earth. He was dynamic, permanently changing everything he touched through love. And that was the goal for Higgs. He wanted to feel change._

_But the idea that Sam would never love Higgs. Plausible. Also Unfathomable. It made the ground slide out from beneath Higgs’s feet._

_“Amelie.”_

_“What is it?”_

_“I need to sit down.”_

_Nothing felt real in that moment. Dear god, it was like the skin had slipped straight off his bones. Higgs sank to his knees in the dirt and stared at the beetles that crawled in and out from the crack of the cement and into the mounds of grass around him._

_This was it._

_This was all his life had to offer._

_Amelie came behind him, snaked her crimson arms around Higgs’s shoulders, resting her head against his cheek._

_The contact caused Higgs to cover his face in a sob. It stung so much. This was unbearable._

_“I don’t like what you’ve made me.”_

_Plush lips turned to his ears and kissed them in rose quartz whispers._

_“Higgs, don’t say that. you were meant for this role to help me, to be my disciple. Lead as my Moses down this path to oblivion. Doesn’t it feel good to know what will happen at the end of all this? To stop finally feeling that ageless human question: When will this all end?”_

_“But what if it doesn’t? What if this is all for nothing? What if my purpose has already been fulfilled?”_

_Amelie cupped Higgs’s cheek and pulled his head over. She planted another reassuring kiss on his forehead._

_“Don’t say that. I know. You’re doing perfect.”_

Thunder rumbled ferociously outside again, just like the black acrimony within Higgs’s eyes. If teardrops had eyes, this would surely be a testament; if one woeful tear from Higgs shrieked out, Sam’s would follow in languid grace. 

Yet all Higgs wanted to do was end it. End this jaundicing, Poe-ish euphony between them. To wipe the grief falling from Sam’s fragile face and suck them dry for all they were worth and shout _“enough!”_ as a sort of spell to lock all the joy within him and then smother him in every color of the sky Higgs learned about so that Sam could see his world in anything other than this cloudy, grey speck of dirt floating in the middle of absolute and wretched nothingness. But Higgs couldn’t. Or maybe he could, but it wouldn’t be right in this moment. 

Sam tried to calm himself with more water. 

“Sam,” Higgs said, “Sam listen, I’m so sorry-”

Sam smashed his glass upon the top of his side table. 

“Sometimes sorry doesn’t cut it.”

The commotion nearly pried the soul out from Higgs’s body. Shards of glass adorned the walnut tabletop as water soared off the edges from all angles. Blood began peeking out from Sam’s hand, but Sam himself didn’t seem to give a single fuck about it. All he did was wipe his face off with the dry side of his bleeding hand as Higgs stared at him wide eyed. The whole scene was like a tragic Veronese painting; made Higgs recoil inside himself and take a mental snapshot of it to make him remember what pain feels like. He never wanted to show his demons again after seeing Sam like that. He was so undeserving.

Thunder judged them from the sky, jostling both men back to their senses and raking out whatever sense of formality that was supposed to exist between them. 

It was never supposed to be like this. 

“You said Amelie didn’t want you dead,” Sam glared, “I thought Fragile left you on The Beach to live. She told me she did.”

“Well, Yeah.” Higgs said, “but what’s the point if my soul isn't here on earth? That I was alone and stranded in this Lovecraftian purgatory, destined to wander aimlessly for eternity? I was as good as dead, _so I was dead._ There weren’t no difference between I and a fallen angel left adrift in hell after arguin’ with god about who belonged in heaven and who didn’t. They were born an angel, so were they really a demon after that? I was gone on Earth, so was I truly alive this whole time?” 

“You have a point, but it still doesn’t explain how she brought you back. Amelie is disconnected from this world.”

“Yeah, I know she is. I was her last bridge. _I was her last strand._ One tiny cut on me and _fwoosh-!”_

Higgs clapped his hands together.

“All connections severed. I don’t know everything about the chiral network, Sam, but I really do believe it had somethin’ to do with my dead body bein’ here. My Ka and my Ha were so deranged; I was numb and staticky to everything but I was also so keen about my surroundings at the same time. I was a contradiction in time and space! Can you imagine how discombobulated I was Sam??? I felt like I was losin’ my damn mind tryin’ to live on Amelie’s Beach, and my predicament certainly wasn’t helpin’ my DOOMS either. It was so relentless, far more mighty than it ever was. It wasn’t giving up on anything to repatriate, not even on spending an eternity with her. My intuition was so out of wack and the ocean was constantly purrin out my name, but I couldn’t do anythin’ bout it. Say, did she ever give you that quipu back?”

Sam gave a slight nod, “but I won’t tell you where it is.”

“See, but that’s it!” Higgs pointed at Sam with exuberance, “That’s how she got me out! She fuckin’ planned it this whole time! You were always my way out!”

Sam sat back in his chair and frowned.

“Why didn’t she kick you off her beach in the first place, though? She just let you stay because of me?”

“Yes and no, I think. Deep down, I feel like Miss Amelie knew she was only prolonging the inevitable by keepin’ me there. She despised bein’ plucked from reality as much as I despised the social isolation. But then one day, the entire sky faded to black. I couldn’t see nothin’.”

And with one silent breath, Higgs’s demeanor changed. His head drooped slowly to the floor.

“And it made me… it made me scared… because I thought I wasn’t real anymore. I thought I had crossed out of our reality and that what I was seein’ was all that was left out beyond the end of this fuckin’ star spittled cosmos. But I knew I…”

He hesitated. 

_Say it._

_Say it._

_Say it._

_Sam is staring._

“I was missing something, and I didn’t want to be locked with her.”

Higgs fiddled around with his hands, and he looked up at Sam. He didn’t seem to think anything of it. He was only waiting for Higgs to continue.

_Thank the Gods._

“But then, The Beach rumbled and I fell to the ground. After that, the sky split open and howled in all these luminescent shades of blue and orange. And then there was screamin’. Screamin’ and shriekin’ in this complete cacophony of outright agony. It spun around and gyrated in almost every area of the sky, but I was too awestruck in the horror of it all to even cover my ears or make a reaction. I eventually fell to the ground at one point, and the only things I could see apart from my hands and legs were the beach rocks that shook in those terrible, terrible colors. It really started to get to me Sam.”

“What did you do?”

“I exploded into this plethora of emotions. Each one was different from the other, lasting from five to ten seconds. I was enveloped in these intense episodes of grief and depression and betrayal. I went from sobbing to downright bawling and then to just feelin’ numb. _It was so confusing._ But after that, the sky turned pink and all I could feel was love. Like a love I’ve never experienced, as if nothin’ ever happened. A wave of tranquility hit me lookin’ up at that sky, and I knew I was okay. I don’t know why, but Something was telling me that I wasn’t gone from this universe, and that everything was gonna work out in the end. So I believed it, Then the sky went back to normal and The Beach existed like usual. And that’s when Amelie showed up with her little quipu strand.”

“Holy hell Higgs,” Sam said, massaging the muscles around his forehead.

“I know,” Higgs responded, “I think it had something to do with you.”

“...Because she didn’t lead you to me prior to that.”

“Took the words straight outta my mouth.” Higgs stretched his arms out above his head and leaned off the couch, glancing at the cryptobiotes behind him and smiling. Then, Higgs leaned over his knees and looked at Sam.

“What happened to you?” Higgs whispered.

Sam sat back and stared at Higgs eyelessly; silence lapped at him, flesh shuddered in pulses. Higgs really asked him this?

_Briny liquid proliferated all over that cold rotten sepulcher. Sam promised himself this would never happen again, but they wanted it this way, so how could he control it? Against Sam, they condensed together like ants over this and towered above him in unanimous legislative deceit. Lathered their iron-clad lips for this moment against frigid teeth._

_“Oh no…”_

_They say all things happen for a reason._

_That doesn’t mean that Sam shouldn’t fight against it._

_This wasn’t real. The universe couldn’t be punishing him again like this._

_But to them, this was the god-given pyre that would reincarnate what should have never ever happened. To bring back their world of balance. They thought they deserved this._

_It was all chicanery anyways. Their world was gone now, and if they truly believed in themselves, they would have killed Sam too._

_“Come on, baby…”_

_Sam was sobbing. She wasn’t responding._

_It was when Sam hugged her that the pyre was lit, but lit for an entirely different purpose. It lit to defy them, ignited as life, and place a quipu in the hand of-_

“Lou is probably starving.” Sam got up from his seat, “I should make dinner. We can talk about this later.”

“Well, Sam…” Higgs stood up as well, rocking against the balls of his heels, “it was nice talkin’ to you, and I really hate to overstay my welcome, but this storm outside is not lettin’ up, and I don’t want to bother you any more than what I have to.”

The look of Higgs rocking like that made Sam click. The shine in his eyes, the pseudo-innocence that irrigated his face...

_Test him. Push him out there for what he did. See if he can withstand the fuckin’ timefall too. You know you’re immune, but is he? Try it. Fucking try it and see if he shrivels up like a fucking prune and once his face is more lines than skin and he’s lost all his hair, take his didgusting face in your hands and scream in it. Make his ears bleed. Tell him how he deserves it. How this is the irony of life and how life destroys everything it touches. He’s no different. He can’t survive everything._

Higgs lifted his arm, readied his fingers to snap.

_He’s infront of you. What are you gonna do?_

Fingers were touching. He’s going away.

“No, Higgs, wait.” Sam said, moving an arm up towards Higgs (but never touching him!), “you can stay if you want. I still have more that I want to talk about with you. Just not right now.”

Higgs stopped and the world ceased to exist. He lowered his arm slowly, gaping at Sam. Sam really said that?

_You can stay if you want._

_Stay if you want._

_You can stay_.

Higgs’s arm lowered all to the way to his side, weak, disquietude sinking to his fingertips. 

“You sure?” He asked, dismayed. 

“I wouldn’t mean it if I didn’t say it.” Sam said, “…unless you don’t like the thought of eating deer for dinner.”

This was actually happening. Higgs didn’t know what he did to deserve this, or how to actually comprehend the situation. This was something that always occupied his dream world, but never really did he think that he would actually be spending the night in fucking _Sam Porter Bridges’s_ home. Something out there in the universe must have loved Higgs very much to allow all this to fall into place. Yes, that was the only answer to all of this. 

The excitement of it all caused a grin to stretch across Higgs’s face.

“No, that sounds delectable."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for the kudos!!! See you in chapter 3!

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's the first chapter! There are probably going to be slow updates, as I am a student, but my hopes are to keep weekly updates going on for this fic!!!!
> 
> See you in chapter 2~!


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